June 11, 2009 3:54 PM
How Abortion Is Viewed In The Rightwingoverse
Posted by Vikki del Rosario
-
TAKE ACTION
-
Recent CREDO Blog entries
-
Donations Recipients
-
RSS feeds
Discussion
It must be fun to live in the Leftwingoverse... the truth is always an inconvenient detail.
Mr Moore, please point to the items that did not happen in real life?
Easy. Start with the white-on-black text in the first panel and keep reading left-to-right top-to-bottom, sticking to the white-on-black text since it's the most coherant expresion of the author's opinion. It'll give you a pretty good idea of the things in the comic strip that are untrue.
But if you want an itemized list, I'll return in a couple days to check the comments section again.
Keith, I am going to have to assume that you're a troll. The comments that abortions are made casually seems to be the underlying argument made by the pro-life crowd. Many of them don't make allocations for rape, or incest, or in cases where a womans life is in danger. Most late term abortions, for example, are performed when a woman is at severe risk from the pregnancy, or in some cases where the baby will be born dead.
The murder of Dr. Tiller seems to actually provoke a lukewarm response from a lot of rightwing groups, many of them essentially giving the tone that Tiller had it coming to him. Add in that many of them denounce Tiller as a murderer and that a lot of the pro-life sites have what look like bounty sheets with pictures of doctors who perform abortions as well as their addresses and phone numbers, with big red Xs over their images when they're killed. These ARE acts of terror by any other name but because they're done by white christians people seem afraid to use the T word.
The politicizing argument has been used by a lot of pundits who get angry when people point out that tillers murderer had ties to operation rescue and that such organizations might have militant wings and require observation. And with O'Reilly, on multiple occaisions he called Tiller, "Tiller the Baby Killer" and said how there was a special place in hell for him. Just saying that there might be something to be said for people being inflamed by such rhetoric.
And you'd be forced to assume wrongly. The comments that abortions are done casually is a crude caricature of the pro-life argument who explicitly distinguish between abortions of convenience and medically-neccessary abortions. This representation tries to represent the smallest minority of the pro-life crowd as if it is the majority of the movement which is a shameless distortion of the truth.
"Lukewarm"? I think someone's been reading Planned Parenthood press releases instead of taking roughly 5 seconds to scan news stories. As before, you'll get maybe a tiny fraction of a percentage of the movement being screwballs and this comic represents that miniscule number as the majority, as do your comments. The uncomfortable truth is that the pro-life groups are exactingly consistent in upholding the importance of ALL innocent life (whether totally innocent or legally innocent) but it's much more satisfying to pretend that they're secretly pleased to see someone they regard as morally (although not legally) guilty be murdered. There is no evidence of this whatsoever and for the comic-writer to pretend otherwise skirts the edge of outright lying.
Yes, select people are inflamed by such rhetoric. Select men also believe that porn is indisputable evidence that woman secretly want to be forcibly stripped and raped and certain teenagers vehemently believe that stealing a random car off the street and shooting up cops is socially acceptable because GTA 3 says so. That someone already predisposed to go evil uses the expressed opinions of a certain group to justify their evil is no commentary on the validity of the group's opinions. You seem to imagine that because there is a risk that a random person in a population of 305 million people might go blow up an abortion clinic because a pro-life group believes that killing fetuses makes a doctor a murderer, pro-life groups should be as bland and colorless as possible. I'm sorry but the fact that there're bad people out there is a really sad excuse to encourage people to avoid saying anything that might hurt the feelings of the pro-abortion crowd.
Just wanted to refer some people to an opinion piece I wrote earlier this year about this very topic. Sorry to be so self-promotional, but I think it is germaine to the topic.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1342714/a_look_at_conservativeness_and_a_very.html?cat=9
Sorry, Keith; there are some anti-abortion advocates who do indeed distinguish between medically necessary abortions and 'convenience' (although how anyone can describe any medical procedure that carries a risk of death as a matter of convenience is beyond me). And then there's radical groups like the Catholic Church, which decried and excommunicated doctors involved in providing an abortion to a nine-year-old girl, while allowing her step-father rapist to remain within the Church.
And right-wing commentators HAVE blamed popular media, video/computer games, and music for causing an upswing of violence and lack of morals among the young; while steadfastly denying that anyone who preached hate on the radio or TV could possibly have any influence on what people do.
Like most people, the majority of the right-wing wants it both ways. And like most people, they get upset when you point that out.
But I will concede that any person who affirms the sanctity of life and believes abortion is wrong on that basis, who also protests ALL acts of violence leading to death (such as, say, the conflict in Iraq and death-penalty executions) is being consistent in their beliefs.
Actually, a majority do. A vast majority, in fact. I'm certain you must be trying to be facetiousin pretending to misunderstand the term "abortion of convenience" (which describes all situations outside of strict medical neccessity since at that point, it becomes an option taken rather than a treatment required). The Catholic Church takes the entirely rational position that with extreme exceptions, abortions are never neccesary and thus never justifiable. This is hardly "radical".
The right-wing folks who think that violent video games make people do things are the same group who decry commentators for what people like to call "hate speech" while the right-wing folks who think that violent games amd movies can only screw with someone who's already got loose screws support a commentator's right to say what they wish and do not believe that it will cause tragedy except if someone listens who's already inclined and willing to do evil things (I fall into the second group).
A majority of the right wing falls into the second category that I describe above and thus gets irritated when people accuse them of inconsistency because said people don't bother to distinguish between two very different schools of thought.
That is one form of consistency, true. Another form of consistency is to add the qualifier "innocent" since that would still exclude all abortions while supporting the right ot the state to levy the ultimate punishment against monsters and go to war to serve the greater good. I fall into this second form of anti-abortion consistency.
Since we are all male and all impressively knowledgeable about how the majority of people in general think and react, I'm sorry to be the one to inject a little bit of realism into this discussion.
The thing is, we already HAVE seen what happens when abortion is outlawed.
Women "choose" to die on kitchen tables, with all sort of pointy things inserted into them or dangerous liquids injected or ingested.
This is exactly what we will return to, if the procedure of abortion is made unavailable to women who can't - or won't - continue with their pregnancy.
The argument about the right of the state to execute the "non-innocents" is a completely different one, in my view, but do tell me how you correct a miscarriage (sigh) of judgement afterwards?
I think we're all getting a little bit crazy. I admit, as a Lefty Liberal, I have been lately, after the recent murders. I think Keith sounds like the kind of pro-life guy we'd want on our side (as in not shooting people). I consider myself anti-abortion, but pro-choice. If a Christian is not trying to kill us, we should be nicer to him. Just saying.
So, you agree with the rational approach of the Catholic Church that it's perfectly acceptable to force a nine-year-old girl to attempt to carry to birth the result of a rape? (Please note the above is NOT a radical view; this decision came from various Cardinals.) Medical necessity was cited by the attending doctors; the Church dismissed that finding as irrelevant.
Either life is sacred, or it is not. If it is, then no one who believes so can advocate or support ANY sort of killing. And who are you, or I, or anyone, to determine who is 'innocent'? As I recall, not even the Christian Savior was willing to make that judgement. If it isn't, then of course you can kill anyone you want without fear of divine retribution. Again, you want it both ways; the right to kill people you don't like, while preserving your 'sacredness of life'.
Tossing around terms like 'majority' is dangerous. Either show some reputable statistics establishing what a 'majority' of 'right-wing' people think, or accept that like the Left, you'll all be judged by your loudest members that you don't immediately disavow say.
And another consistent position is to allow both abortions and capital punishment. If you don't like people, this makes perfect sense; get rid of as many people as possible.
Actually, Kris, we have the pro-abortion horror stories about "coat hanger" abortions. The problem is that because it was illegal, at that time, to provide abortions, a doctor who made a serious error and punctured the uterus could not rush their patient to the emergency room and tell the truth about what had happened. Subsequently, they were forced to make up a cause that would fit the effect and the most convenient one was "this poor young woman tried to abort her fetus with a coat hanger" which was utterly impossible to disprove. The less principled ones, naturally, just found an alley to dump their patient in and these, too, became "coat-hanger abortion" victims. The statistic is very suspect because there is no reliable measurement and no way whatsoever to distinguish between a uterus punctured by a sterilized medical probe and one punctured by a sterilized coat hanger. The scare tactic is impressive because it cannot be disproven but when it gets down to brass tacks, it is merely a scare tactic instead of a rational argument against abortion.
Oh, don't even go there, Kris. Doctors did under-the-table abortions out of personal principle before Roe v. Wade and will do so if states are allowed to ban abortion in the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade (once again: the repeal of Roe v. Wade IS NOT the same thing as a blanket ban on abortion). Don't pretend that thousands of poor innocent women will kill themselves in a desperate attempt to perform major surgery on themselves because they're pregnant if a couple states decide to ban the procedure. Hysteria adds nothing to this debate, no matter who's serving it up.
*snorts* "Miscarriage of justice" is such a fascinating term. Many people opposed to the death penalty would count ANY execution as miscarriage of justice because they regard death as unjust. As to the normal person's definition, will the 15 years of appeals you can file to have a good dozen different courts examine the evidence several times over, it's so difficult to miscarry justice that anti-death-penalty folks are using the very regime they demanded to argue for the end of the death penalty, pointing out that it's become so hard (and expensive) to carry out. It's easier to cage a mass murderer at major taxpayer expense for 59 years (21 to 80 years of age, approximate natural lifespan) than send them to the gallows. I somehow doubt that there's much chance of this "miscarriage of justice" you fear.
Aww, cut it out Phoinex_Q... you're making me blush. :) Thanks for the kind words.
You know perfectly well that I defined the "radical" view that I supported. I believe in the specific instance you cite, the general argument fails but since it's a general argument, a specific instance doesn't disprove it. I support the general argument of the Catholic Church.
Life is sacred, period. Its sanctity is such that it enjoys an insane level of protection even on a battlefield; a soldier who finds another soldier either surrendering or injured too severely to fight is lawfully obligated to do no further harm and, in fact, attempt to preserve their life. You are quite wrong about the Christian Savior, suffice it to say, which makes me suspect that you heard that somewhere and are simply repeating it uncritically to add weight to your argument. Since a criminal condemed to die is not "innocent life" and a developing child is, there is no "both ways" about it. Hypocrisy is only a powerful accusation if it is advanced legitimately; you are failing to do so.
Tossing around terms like "majority" isn't dangerous unless it's a shaky claim which it is not. Since it is the argument of this comic and apparently yourself that a majority believes the same as the loud minority, you have the burden of proof, not I. As to being judged by the loudest members (which the "mudering Tiller was good" crowd didn't qualify as), it is unfortunate that people only believe what they're shown but it's a fact of life that those who take and transmit the pictures and words are disinclined to show or reprint anything that weakens their agument. The fact that a significant and normally visible majority of the pro-life people disavow the kinds of arguements this comic attributes to the movement of the whole would severely weaken the "pro-life people are dangerous" action line and it is thus not widely distributed for the consumption of the general public.
True, that is consistent although rather ghastly.
Keith - I'm not worried about doctors perfoming illegal abortions. Doctors have the training, and the knowledge of the systems to have their patients survive. I'm worried about the 'adresses' and 'contact' being circulated, following a idiotic decision to outlaw anything else than legal, accessible and safe abortions, up to some point in time in the prenancy where the procedure becomes too stressful (physically or mentally) or too risky for anyone involved.
The procedure of abortion is in the early weeks of pregnancy a fast, safe and simple procedure, but I don't want quacks performing it. Your approach will, inevitably, cost the lives of women. So much for the wonderfully elastic sanctity of live.
It is a tremendous stress on a woman to have an abortion performed. There is no need to add more guilt to the horrible array of emotions a woman having to go through an abortion experiences. Shall we instead try to avoid the pregnancies in the first place, and teach our kids to use condoms?
But I understand from your latest post that there is a difference: 'innocent' life is sacred, 'non-innocent' life is not.
As you appear to be a religious man, I realise that debating this with you is senseless, as you will have no qualms about maintaining severeal mutually exclusive opinions at the same time, but what if... what if... our justice system wasn't infallible?
How would you bring innocent, executed convicts back to life?
The justice system conveniently closes any case where the defendant was executed, but how many times is not that we have heard about long term prisoners being released on new evidence proving their innocence?
Keith, also, if I were you, I wouldn't bother replying. Ignoring this thread is the only way you stand a chance of coming out of this looking good. You've said your piece.
Considering the dearth of proof that an abortion ban cost the lives of women in the first place (the possibility that it might have doesn't constitute proof), I feel quite comfortable dismissing your proclaimation of doom as hysterical rhetoric rather than a likely unintended consquence of allowing some states to ban abortion again.
Abstinence is a viable part of the solution, naturally. So is allowing certain states to decide that the medical procedure of abortion is illegal in their state boundaries and that an unemancipated minor may not be legally transported over state lines without consent of the parents (with the normal clauses to take into account abuse, rape, incest, etc) to get an abortion.
I said nothing of the sort. I said that all life was sacred but that innocent life should not be subject to the right of the state to take it away. I did not say that non-innocent life was less sacred, just that it is properly subject to the laws providing for its termination.
Kris, I gather that it must be fun and easy to assume that someone who does not agree with your version of "reasonable" must be religious and thus impervious to logic (and also a permissible target for snarky insults) but throwing around unwarrented assumptions coming out of your own narrow biases is just what you're claiming that religious people do. Without meaning to be too unkind, that's sorta kinda the first sign of a hypocrite.
Our justice system isn't infallible and as a reflection of this, you have to practically sacrifice your firstborn child to get a known admitted mass-murderer stuck in front of a firing squad. The safeguards in place against the state accidentally killing an innocent person are approaching the level of insane paranoia. For our purposes, the system to prevent the execution of the innocent is as close to perfect as it is possible to be. As proof of that, innocent people on death row who are still being protected by a billion appeals of their sentences are released. How you can ask any more of the system than protecting someone until the possiblility of their innocence has been eliminated, I cannot imagine.
BWAHAHAHA! Oh, you're a funny guy, Kris. You're the one assuming without evidence that I'm religious, using highly suspect statistics to claim that abortion bans will surely result in the deaths of women, and pretending that I said things that I clearly did not... and you're advising ME that I need to abandon the fight to avoid looking bad? Thumping on someone until they get annoyed and leave is just as much a victory as making them an object of ridicule and I've got the endurance.
You say life is sacred, but your very statements contradict this. If life is sacred, soldiers have no business on the battlefield, or anywhere else, and no one who believes life is sacred can be a soldier.
Sorry, but the statements of the Princes of the Church cannot be considered an exception to the general argument. They ARE the Church (along with the Pope). Therefore, their statements in this case IS the position and general argument of the Catholic Church. Saying otherwise is like saying the CEO and Board of Directors of a company don't speak for and establish positions for that company.
And again: who are you to say that a criminal condemned to die is not an innocent life? Do you have some supernatural powers to absolutely, without any doubts, confirm guilt or innocence? Does anyone? Keith, the law is administered by people. People make mistakes. It is an absolute certainty that some people are executed for crimes they did not commit. And besides, life is either sacred or not; what someone does with their life would not affect this. What you are saying is that men (and women) have to power to 'de-sanctify' life. If so, then feti can be 'de-sanctified' as easily as adults.
You're saying that a majority of those who oppose abortion think in a certain way. I asked you to show proof. You didn't. There's no 'burden of proof' here, this isn't a court of law. You disagree with the sentiments of the comic; no argument with that statement is possible. You then say the comic does not accurately portray the 'majority' of those who oppose abortion. You may be right; but without proof you're making a simple statement in opposition to the comic.
And why is my final statement 'ghastly'? Where, in human history, can you show any great concern over the vast majority of human life for any prolonged period? A disaster brings about brief remorse and reform. And then people slip back into their apathy about the welfare of anyone outside their immediate family and friends. Warfare in itself shows a great unconcern for the lives of the 'others'.
Life is so sacred that it enjoys protections that no other right or possession does. If you want to test the relative sanctity of anything, examine how fanatically a society protects it; our society, among many others is fully willing to terminate life as a measure to deter others from taking it. The protection of life simply doesn't get more fervent than the willingness to kill in its name.
I feel no need to repeat myself twice, Bruce; I've already explained what I support and you do not seem willing to read carefully enough to understand.
And again: the safeguards to ensure that the possibility of innocence is eliminated approach the insanely paranoid such that they fully compensate for possible errors in judgement. Despite your declaration that some people are executed for crimes they did not commit, it has yet to happen under the system of interlocking safeguards that our government employs. I say that a criminal condemned to die is not an innocent life because by the time that death will be carried out on him, there will be no doubt of his guilt. Wordweave as much as you want; you can't make the rationality of that position go away.
You seem to be laboring under the illusion that taking a life means that it's less sacred. Let me disabuse you of such a flawed notion: lawful execution is the manifestation of the notion that life is so sacred that violating that sanctity deprives you of the right to live. There is no more stark manifestation of sanctity since it is impossible to do more harm to someone than killing them.
Burden of proof is a legal matter because it is a logical matter. The affirmative statement bears the burden of proof since you cannot prove a negative. The comic makes the statement that a typical (same thing as a majority) pro-life person believes a certain thing and acts a certain way; someone who defends this conclusion bears the burden of proof. Thus, I do not bear any responsibility for proving that the comic it wrong; someone who defends its conclusions, however, bears responsibility for proving that the comic is right.
Bruce, if I have to explain to you why a consistent position that leads to destroying as many human lives as possible is ghastly, you are not capable of understanding it. That is an utterly inane question just as your extrapolation is utterly inane; "get rid of as many people as possible" is not a sentiment expressed in brief concern for victims of a disaster nor is it one expressed in an unconcern for the enemy because if one really did want to be rid of as many people as possible, it would lead to a general apathy about the destruction of life, not a specific apathy about the destruction of enemy life.
I suppose the irony of willing to kill for the 'sacredness of life' completely escapes you.
And I judge a society by what it does, not what it says. A society that is willing to kill others does not believe in the sanctity of life, no matter how much it protests otherwise.
What part of 'human beings make mistakes' do YOU seem incapable of understanding? No matter how many safeguards are put up, mistakes WILL be made. And in the case of crimes involving death penalties, innocent people WILL be executed. There is no miraculous point at which multiple safeguards suddenly ensure against any error. No system ever designed by human beings can avoid error.
Killing people to promote the sanctity of life. "It's wrong to kill people, unless we do it." Double standard, aka wanting it both ways. Either life is sacred, or it is not. If it is, no judgement, no finding by people can suddenly remove its sacredness. If it is not, then of course it can be done.
I am merely stating the position society (and people) have taken concerning human life. You may not like it, but this is how people behave. People have already decided that the lives of others aren't worth very much (unless we're talking about their lives, or those of family and friends). So, people have decided life is not sacred (unless it's their life).
You claim to support the 'rational' position of the Catholic Church. I say that their position, as stated by their leaders, is inhumanly cruel and shows far more disrespect to the living than it claims to respect the unborn.
If abortion was good enough for the Puritans, then it should be good enough for today.
No, the irony doesn't escape me but the significance seems to be escaping you. If you are unwilling to defend your life or the life of someone else with any force necessary, that sort of indicates that life is less valuable to you than something else. On the other hand, being willing to use all possible force in defense of your life or the life of another indicates that life has the greatest possible value in your eyes.
Bruce, until you can demonstrate that the safeguards have failed or even gotten CLOSE to failure, all the theoretical musings about the inevitability of failure are moot. Could a nuclear reactor coolant system that circulates coolant without needing anything other than the coolant pipes fail? Yes, of course it could--in theory. But the reaction to this possibility (outside of the irrational anti-nuclear terror that many people exhibit) is always to create more safeguards to prevent failure, not to admit that the ultimate goal is a waste because it is somehow possible that the means could fail. The universe could spontaneously explode 20 seconds from now; it is possible but so unlikely as to resemble impossibility. Debating anything in terms of "it's possible so we shouldn't try" is complete irrationality and I have no intent of wandering that endless tangent.
A society that is willing to kill to safeguard life is a society that believes most in its sanctity. A society founded around the idea that life is too sacred to defend or preserve by any means necessary is tacitly admitting that it actually places no particular value on life. I'm sorry that you cannot understand that what you're willing to do in defense of a thing defines the sanctity with which you regard that thing but that's just how life is, I suppose.
You are stating the position that a limited number of societies (most of which were either crushed under the wheels of a war machine or the gavel of justice) have taken concerning human life. I do not like it but am pleased that it is such a small number. I do not see how it bears any relation to this discussion, however.
Whereas I say that minor occasional deviations from a general position say nothing about that general position. Anti-trust laws were once applied to enrich trusts and crush labor unions; this says nothing about the merit of laws against trusts but simply exposes the incorrect use of otherwise good laws.
Oh, please... the Puritans, as their name implied, were out to purify the church of every vice and every symbol of ungoldy authority. There's a really good reason that they failed miserably and for all practical purposes no longer exist: their progeny realized that their parents were out to destroy the very purpose of the religion they were trying to save and largely turned away from the enterprise. I'm not sure what you meant to accomplish by bringing them up.
I don't need to demonstrate a fact. But if you insist on proof, you could always look at the numerous sites devoted to clearing people of unjust inprisonment. Some of the people that have been freed from prison were on death row. With the additional investigation, they were acquitted by a court of the charges. Since they were on death row, they would have been executed. All of the groups devoted to 'double-checking' murder convictions admit they lack the resources to check every single case. Therefore, innocent people have been executed. By the same token the airline industry has numerous safeguards in place to protect the safety of their passengers. By your logic, no American airline plane should ever crash. And yet, sometimes, despite the best efforts by everyone involved, they do.
The statements by leaders of an organization CANNOT be considered a deviation from their general position. That's just ludicrous. "I'm the president of this company, but really, I have no authority to set policy. That's set by the rank and file."
Life is sacred, or it is not. If it is sacred, it was made so by divine edict, and mortals cannot set this aside because it's convenient to do so. If it is not sacred, then men may do as they choose. Again, you want it both ways; you want life to be sacred up to the point that the 'sacredness' would actually inconvenience or threaten you or what you care about. A society that is willing to kill has made its decision about the 'sanctity' of life, and has done so in the negative, no matter what it may claim.
Finally, the whole anti-abortion issue is a major violation of the separation of Church and State. It is an attempt, under the guise of 'protection' to use the rule of law (force) to compel non-believers into following the rules of some sects of Christianity.
OK, I shall endeavor to "speak" very slowly for you. Do... you... have... any... incidences... where... an.... innocent... person.... was... executed? I'm not hearing a "yes" or any offer of evidence that this is the case. In fact, all I'm hearing from you is mountains of proof that the safeguards work just fine because--guess what--people who would have been wrongly executed HAVEN'T been. In fact, the worst you can possibly accuse the system of is working so slowly that the theoretically innocent person dies on death row... but isn't executed. The safeguards are repeatedly proved sufficient and each and every time that an innocent person is identified and released from prison, it is one more piece of proof that the safeguards function correctly.
Um... yes it can. If an organization says "in general, no one should be executed" and then the leadership issues a statement encouraging the execution of a particularly brutal war criminal, the leadership has just made a statement that is a deviation from the general position that no one should be executed. But it doesn't change the fact that the general position remains that no one should be executed.
A society that is willing to kill to preserve or defend life has made it decision about the sanctity of life and has done so in the positive, no matter what you may claim.
Oh, please. You'd think that if there was even the barest hint of a First Amendment violation, at least ONE of the court decisions striking down some anti-abortion law might discuss it. But no, they all babble about "right to privacy" and the decisions establishing THAT fiction cited the 4th Amendment, not the 1st. If you're going to go bouncing off the walls on a tangent, at least have the courtesy to sound like you have a clue.
Beyond the utter absurdity of your "separation of church and state" nonsense, think about what you're trying to say here. You're complaining that the majority is making a law in defiance of the minority's wishes, sort of the situation that develops whenever ANY group votes to decide a question. Isn't that sorta kinda maybe a-little what the entire POINT of a majority-rules system is?
Since you don't wish to accept deductive logic re the fallibility of human beings...
Girves Davies, 1995. Odell Barnes, 2009. Freddie Lee Wright, 2009. David Wayne Spence, 1997. Jesse Talifero, 1990. Further names can be found in the Stamford Law Review, November 1987.
Human life, IF it is sacred, was done so by divine edict. So, men may set aside the dictates of God at their convenience? Mighty handy, that. Funny thing is, I don't recall that being allowed as an option for the faithful.
"Killing for the sanctity of life". What's next? "Stealing for the sanctity of property?"
Society has already set a price on, and therefore does not agree with you, concerning the sanctity of life.
The Supreme Court is composed of politically sensitive lawyers who try to avoid controversy at all costs. But simply because they lack the nerve to bring up the fact that anti-abortion laws are rooted in religious objections does not invalidate the argument. The Law, and Science, should be involved; not religious feelings. In fact, the Supreme Court's efforts to duck this controversy has led to the current impasse. HAD the Court invoked the separation of Church and State, and relied solely on legal and medical evidence, things would be much clearer.
I don't accept mindless claims that something simply MUST be the case because you believe it to be so.
A couple possibles, a couple no doubt about guilt. Impressive list.
Human life is sacred enough to be worthy of defense by the sword i.e. executing those who take it or killing to protect it. Such is the actual divine edict, all your wishes to the contrary notwithstanding.
Society doesn't agree with YOU and I agree with society.
Perhaps you have a reading difficulty. I referred to ALL decisions striking down anti-abortion laws, district court all the way up to the Supreme Court. In your mind, the reason that your absurd reasoning hasn't been adopted is that all judges are politically sensitive. Your ability to deny reality is impressive but futile.
Ah, but that is the real fly in the ointment. They were unable to justify their rulings by appealing to the first amendment, established law, or medical evidence. So they simply issued a fiat. By a combination of legal and medical standards, abortion ought to be subject to a blanket ban; sorry that the evidence doesn't work out for ya, hun.
Once again, my main problem with banning abortion is that no one answers the question I posed in my article: then what? Do you think young women will stop having sex? What will you do with those children when most conservatives are also against social programs that would be there to possibly help them? If abortion is banned, will those who are fighting so hard for its abolition be willing to support increased taxes to create social programs for the children, already unwanted, who will now be born?
You can't ban abortion and somehow assume everything will be all right. As a free country shouldn't we acknowledge that there is a problem with people having sex and having unwanted children? And that as a free country we should have as many choices available to those mothers as possible? And that should they make a choice, even one you disagree with, that it be done safely?
Or are you going to adopt those children? Are you going to sit in your white suburban home and smile smugly thinking you did something great for the world while in the poorer sections of town (where statistically most of the abortions are sought) more and more legions of children growing up in broken homes grows?
When that child is 16 and holding a gun against you or your loved one for money or as part of some gang inititiation since their families have all but abandoned them...what will you tell that child? That you fought to ban abortion for him? Will you quote statistics to him?
The argument against abortion is remarkably short-sighted. Like so many conservative programs, it sees something but doesn't see past it. OK, so, you ban abortion...tell me what you do next? What do you do to help the frightened mothers? What do you do to help them pay for their child and keep them alive?
What do you do next?
Then... alternatives are found to killing fetuses. That's what happens after there's a ban on abortion. Now, granted that the chances of a blanket ban are virtually impossible if you return the matter to the states (after all, not all states have an anti-abortion majority) so it's a pointless question but let's entertain it. Your question proceeds from an ignorant understanding of how conservatives regard social programs. To boil it down to a single generalization, they regard government-run social programs to be enormously flawed and inefficient attempts to replace a successful system of private charity with a state-run system of compulsory public "compassion". In short, the answer to your implied question is that conservatives would rationally expect private charitable organizations to pick up the slack and provide shelter, a warm meal, and all sorts of aid to the needy with the goal of giving them the ultimate gift of the simple dignity of being able to provide for themselves and not need any handout from anyone.
Conservatives support the government ejecting the morass of inefficient and wasteful social programs and giving the money back to the people so they can donate it to the organizations that are able to get good results with it. The government can only give 10 cents of every dollar to the hungry; organizations like the Salvation Army spend 70 cents of every dollar to help the poor. The most simply and mundane truths of the matter indicate that the government cannot help the poor but it can make those who ARE self-sufficient into the poor.
As a free country, the majority of each of the 50 states ought to be allowed to decide which optional medical procedures they allow especially when this optional procedure directly results in the loss of a life. If woman remain unable to keep their pants on out of wedlock, they can go to the states that allow accessory abortion but have no right to demand that the majority bend to their whims. The only reason they can impose this demand is that the Supreme Court imposed the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton standards on the country at large.
What do we do next? We tear down the welfare system. We tear down the crushing burden of federal regulations and taxation. We tear down the government's tyrannical control over essentials like education. We demand that the government do only what it is required to do and allow the several states to take care of the rest. After that, with billions of dollars NOT taken from people by the government and the economy NOT chained down by the we-know-best statists, we as conservatives use the new freedom to direct money and resources to those things that work and TRULY help the naked and the hungry and the ignorant and the hopeless and the sick and the infirm and everyone who needs the enlightened charity of free citizens who are out to pull the penniless up the economic ladder to a place of comfort and opportunity. The solution to the dark and dismal world you try to imagine in the absence of a Big Brother government is maximum liberty under the social contract of the American Constitution.
So, Keith, we've established that you can't follow simple logic. Very well.
Hmm. You demand names, then promptly dismiss those names when I provide them. No problem: just state when you received either your legal degree, or your credentials as a criminal investigator.
Tell the Quakers that the divine edict allows killing. Tell any Christian sect (there are a few) that follows complete pacifism that they are wrong. There is obviously considerable interpretation among Christians of what 'Thou Shalt not Kill' truly means. So, what makes you right and all these others wrong?
Society already dictates how much will be paid in a wrongful death suit. Society already decrees how much will be paid towards your medical expenses to keep you from dying. Society already has decided whose lives are more important by allocation of funds towards those it deems valuable, and away from those deemed expendable. Please state your evidence, other than a willing to kill anyone who disagrees with it, Society's support for the sacredness of life.
Medical evidence? You mean, that a fetus is, scientifically, a parasite that cannot survive outside a womb until at least the 19th week? That medical/scientific evidence?
Keith, if abortion was truly banned at the level you'd wish; MORE money would have to go to the government. Why? Because of the huge increase in police, judges and jails that would be required. Every spontaneous abortion would have to be criminally investigated. If that investigation showed any sign of maternal neglect, criminal prosecutions would have to follow, resulting in more trials, and more people in jail.
Join the Discussion